Swire Shipping to use marine biofuel on 3 vessels serving the Pacific Islands

Swire Shipping's Tonga Chief. (Photo: Swire Shipping)

Swire Shipping, a leading shipping company in the Asia-Pacific region, announced April 24 that three of its vessels serving the South Pacific have made the switch to B24 and B30 second-generation biofuel blends.

The voluntary move supports Swire Shipping’s long-term sustainability ambitions and will provide more options to customers looking to reduce their emissions.

The three vessels involved in the biofuel program are Apia Chief and Tonga Chief on the Pacific Weekly Express (PWX) service running direct calls from Southeast Asia to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and Fiji, and Kokopo Chief on the East Timor (ETS) service, which provides direct service every 10 days between Singapore, Dili, Darwin and Surabaya.

The vessels will bunker B24 in Singapore in the second quarter en route to the South Pacific and will subsequently transition to B30.

“At Swire Shipping, we are committed to reducing our environmental footprint and contributing to a more sustainable future,” said Swire Shipping CEO Jeremy Sutton.

“The island nations of the South Pacific are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and this move marks an important step in our ongoing efforts to reduce emissions and support a cleaner, greener shipping industry,” Sutton said.

The biofuel program brings together Swire Shipping and its sister company, Argent Energy, a waste-based biodiesel producer, achieving synergies within the Swire Group to meet the shared goal of delivering sustainable-energy solutions to customers.

The collaboration includes an agreement with BP, a supplier of biofuel in Singapore, to explore new feedstocks for marine fuel.

“This successful biofuel program highlights what can be achieved through strong international partnerships, all united by the common goal of decarbonization,” said Argent Energy CEO Louise Calviou.

“It has been especially rewarding to work alongside our sister company and other partners to accelerate the use of waste-derived biofuels,” Calviou added. “We look forward to continuing our collaborative efforts, with sustainability at the center of all we do.”

With the launch of its biofuel program, Swire Shipping will also launch a carbon-abatement program, Voyage to Zero, to help customers decarbonize their supply chains.

Participating customers will receive certificates of emission savings, verified by an independent third party, towards the reduction of their scope 3 emissions.

“Swire Shipping has ambitious voluntary targets for reduction of emissions by 2027,” said Susana Germino, Swire Shipping’s chief sustainability and energy-transition officer.

“The biofuel program is a significant milestone in our decarbonization roadmap, and with Voyage to Zero we are able to offer greater support to customers looking to decarbonize their supply chains,” Germino said. “In this first year, the impact of the program will be comparable to removing 2,700 cars from the road.”

Last August, Swire Shipping conducted a successful second-generation biofuel B24 trial that allowed the company to test operational readiness to adopt biofuels on its owned vessels for the long term.